Friday 9 April 2010

Malcolm McLaren RIN


Sad news that the Godfather of Punk has passed away. I saw the Sex Pistols - Cook, Jones, Rotten and Vicious - live in Penzance in the mid seventies (summer of 76 I think) and it was an experience I will carry to my grave. I arrived a long haired Zeppelin and Genesis loving hippy expecting to see a Who warm up gig (the Pistols were banned from performing under their own name), and left deaf in both ears and having witnessed GBH on music, decorum, decency and the British establishment.

The Pistols hit the stage over sixty minutes late and during that hour a roadie kept coming on and telling the audience to "F*** off home because there's no F***ing way the Pistols are going to play a F***ing shithole like Penzance." By the time they came on and exploded into their set, the atmosphere was so violent that Genghis Khan might have retreated with his tail between his legs. Every song in the set sounded exactly the same because the amps were turned up to maximum volume and Cook or Jones (who was the guitarist?) was stood too close to his amp so we heard feedback at mega decibels throughout. Rotten screamed and yelled and wailed but you couldn't hear a word he was saying. Vicious, meanwhile, had a razor blade tucked into the strings of his base and sliced his arms and body throughout the gig. At one point, between "songs", he came forward to a mic and said, "The next f***ing c**t who f***ing spits at me is going to get my f***ing guitar wrapped round his f***ing face." They hit the first "note" of the next number, Vicious was showered with spit and he whacked some poor sod round the face with his guitar. There was blood everywhere and the guy was carried out! And there I was, in a Genesis t shirt, love beads round my neck, flared jeans and bangles round my wrist!

There is no relevance to West Ham of course. Except McLaren released a fantastic solo album called Fans, and boy will the team need the fans tomorrow! Perhaps Zola and Stanislas could listen to Buffalo Gals before kickoff and, in particular, the refrain, "Round the outside, round the outside"! Never mind the bollocks Zola, get Stanislas wide right and get those crosses winging into the box. And let's hope that come the final whistle there is a future!

Anyway, Malcolm RIN - Rest In Noise!

2 comments:

Stani Army said...

HF,
Stan's gonna play left wing BECAUSE....we have no one else there unless GZ does what he did against Everton.

Now if he does play left, make sure you spot the good things he does and temper some of that negativity bias with some positivity. It will make you better HF, according to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. You will become more creative and be able to obtain the 'big picture' perceptual focus in regards to the fortunes of our club.

P.S,
You do know that that song goes onto say "Four buffalo gals go around the outside"?

Hammersfan said...

You had better be wrong Stani or I'll start writing our Premiership obituary now!